It is good and prudent that Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is dropping out of the Republican presidential race, but it’s a real shame he failed. The South Carolina senator failed not only to poll well or to raise funds, but he also failed to make a strong case for his candidacy — because he failed to take on the front-runner, former President Donald Trump.
Scott’s failure to challenge Trump is especially lamentable because Scott’s vision of conservatism and the Republican Party is the most important rejoinder to Trumpism. Scott articulated this vision in some of his last words as a candidate: his closing remarks in the latest GOP debate.
CIVILITY IS NOW COUNTERCULTURAL
“We should turn back to faith, patriotism, and individual responsibility,” Scott said. “We should stop choosing victimhood and start choosing victory. We should stop kneeling in protest and start kneeling in prayer.”
These words could sound like a critique of leftism, but they are also a very incisive rebuttal of Trumpism.
Faith, patriotism, and individual responsibility — these get lip service from Trump, but Trump has often perverted their meaning, while Scott has exhibited the true and useful versions of them.
And choosing victory over victimhood would be a sharp departure from the Trump era, in which grievance, blame, and conspiracy-theorizing have created a culture of losing in the GOP.
But let’s start with Scott’s failure, which was, above all, a failure to criticize Trump.
Scott had the chance to point out Trump’s failures and flaws at the first debate. Yes, Trump skipped that debate, but Scott had the spotlight, and Trump’s name was in the air. Scott declined to say a single negative thing about the front-runner.
Moderators asked Scott about the Capitol riot Trump instigated on Jan. 6, 2021, with his refusal to accept his electoral defeat. Scott, to his discredit, declined to criticize Trump and pivoted immediately to the “bigger question” of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s weaponization of the Justice Department.
Scott is right to attack Garland. And Scott rightly recalled that Garland, for political purposes, persecuted pro-lifers with flimsy charges. But it’s a shame that Scott couldn’t first point out that Trump, after losing in 2020, chose lies and grievance over responsibility and patriotism.
On the whole, though, Scott’s message was a good one.
Scott’s brief run established him as a leader in reintroducing faith into public life. These days, much of our governing class and elite media believe that faith has no business stepping out from behind church doors and into the town square. This is ahistorical and harmful, if not bigoted.
When the Obama administration was persecuting the Little Sisters of the Poor, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) once blew off questions about freedom of conscience with the flip answer, “I do my religion on Sundays.” Former President Barack Obama used to say “freedom of worship” instead of “free exercise of religion.”
State governments and teachers unions argue it is profane to allow publicly funded K-12 scholarships to go to Jewish, Muslim, or Christian schools. Large portions of the commentariat recoil and cry “theocracy” any time a conservative politician mentions his faith.
That’s one reason Scott’s candidacy was salutary. He defined himself as a Christian guided by faith, reminded America that we were founded based on Judeo-Christian values, and made it clear that his own up-from-poverty story depended on the church and faith.
In our secular age, we need this reminder that our pluralistic democracy shouldn’t be one stripped of any hint of the divine.
Also, in an age when decadence is celebrated or tolerated, Scott tried to steer us toward values.
In the first debate, Scott said, “Our responsibility should be to model the behavior we want others to follow.”
The average Republican voter has clearly abandoned this idea for the moment, because the average Republican wants Trump as the party’s standard-bearer. Donald Trump is not the model of behavior any conservative wants others to follow.
Those who justify Trump’s dishonesty, vulgarity, and narcissism defend him as the conservative answer to dishonest, vulgar, and self-serving leftists and as the remedy to conservative naivete and restraint.
Nobody believes Trump is a model of behavior. He is what we raise our children not to be.
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Scott, despite being a man of apparently sincere and deep faith, failed to take on Trump, which was a real failure.
But as the brief chapter of his 2024 presidential run comes to an end, hopefully, he will be renewed in his quest to restore God to the center of our culture, including our politics.